This is How a Revolution Dies
by RoseFyre
Summary: President Snow does the smart thing. He murders Katniss Everdeen. Catching Fire Canon Divergent AU.
1. Bloodbath

**oOo**

There's a body.

Well.

There's part of a body.

One of Katniss's arms and both of her legs are gone, leaving behind mauled stumps. The last limb is covered in scratches. Half of her hair is pulled out, and there are teeth marks across her face and chest. One of her eyes is missing. Her neck is torn out.

Violet finds herself cataloging the injuries with the dispassionate gaze of a healer.

Because if she thinks as a mother, she'll shatter.

One of the Peacekeepers who brought the body looks at the room - at Peeta clutching the knife he was using to slice bread for their supper, at Haymitch sitting by the chess set with forced nonchalance, at Prim sobbing in her mother's arms - and says, "She shouldn't have gone beyond the fence." And then he and his partner leave.

Violet knows what she has to do. From the looks on their faces, neither of the men can handle it, and her daughter, innocent thirteen-year-old Prim who's somehow kept her heart despite everything, definitely can't. She leads Prim to the kitchen, takes Peeta's knife, and hands him her remaining daughter. Instinctively, he hugs the girl, letting her sob into his shoulder instead of her mother's. Haymitch stumbles over to join them. He grabs a bottle of white liquor and doesn't even pick up a cup, just drinks straight from the bottle.

Part of her wants to break, the way she did when Solomon died. But she's older now, more numb, and she's been mentally preparing for this since Katniss volunteered. If she breaks, Prim will too, and she can't allow that to happen.

Instead she gently gathers the body and carries it upstairs to prepare it for burial.

As Violet washes the body and sews the wounds she can, she thinks through what has to happen. There will be a funeral - and will she have any say in it, or will it be dictated by the Capitol just as Katniss's wedding would have been?

The crate of wedding dresses is still waiting for Katniss to try them on. Violet bites her lip and pushes the tears back.

After the funeral, she and Prim will have to return to their old house. She's sure it will need to be cleaned, and they'll have to bring all their things back. The furniture's there - they've been using the Capitol-provided things - but the list of other things is long. Bedding, clothing, food, personal items...

At least they've been stashing money away, Katniss's stipend as a Victor, and Violet should be able to keep that… especially if the Capitol doesn't know she has it. Thankfully, most of it's hidden sewn inside their old bedding or clothes. The safest places she could think of. Old habits die hard in Twelve.

They'd best start packing soon to make sure they get it all, as well as anything of Katniss's they want to keep. Surely the rest will be turned into some Capitol parody of a memorial.

And then… then she'll go back to healing and pray that Prim isn't Reaped. It isn't likely. In all the Games she's watched, someone who was spared from the Arena by a volunteer has never been called again. Of course, there's no guarantee. Prim's name will be in that bowl. Twice this year, more next.

But it isn't likely. Which is good.

Because she knows in every inch of her being that if Prim is Reaped, her daughter will never make it out of the Arena.

And if Prim doesn't survive, neither will Violet.

**oOo**

Snow is smart, Haymitch has to admit.

Kill their figurehead - but don't make her a martyr.

"What a terrible tragedy," the man says in a grand speech, falsehood oozing from every pore, "that Katniss Everdeen should be so thoughtless and thrill-seeking as to go beyond the fence and into that dangerous wilderness, when she had every advantage the Capitol could provide. We will have to increase Peacekeeper patrols and make certain each district's border is fully secure." He presses a hand to his heart… or where a heart would be, if he had one. "We wouldn't want to lose more citizens to the monsters that live beyond our borders, would we?"

The Capitol eats the message up, mourning the girl they lost in the way only the Capitol can. Within weeks, they've produced three movies, a radio drama, six books, and a television serial about the dangers beyond the fence. One movie is even a (very badly done) biopic of Katniss's life, with an extremely clean and healthy District Twelve and two people who look about thirty playing Katniss and Peeta. Katniss is presented as foolish, thoughtless, a thrill-seeker. All things she wasn't… but a safe view of her for the Capitol's consumption.

The districts don't accept the message immediately, but they're confused and dispirited, unsure which way to go. There are small rebellions, but they are quickly squashed. The momentum sputters and dies.

And Thirteen…

Thirteen cancels the revolution.

The day Plutarch tells him, Haymitch punches a wall and gets drunk.

Drunker, really. He hasn't stopped being drunk since Katniss died. No. Since Katniss was murdered. Oh, no one will ever admit it, but he knows the signs. It's a 'tragic death,' just like his family. And just as natural.

Yeah. Snow is very smart. When the Quell card is read, it announces that, as a reminder to the rebels that even those who depend on the Capitol least must still look to it for everything, the tributes for the 75th Games will only be Reaped from those who have never taken tesserae, and that no one can sign up for tesserae from this moment until the day after the Reaping.

It turns Twelve against itself, the merchants angry at the Seam, the Seam gloating back at the merchants. "Let them see what it's like," he hears over and over, as though the merchants never had anyone Reaped before. For fuck's sake, Peeta went just last year, and Haymitch will never forget Maysilee. And they're not the only ones. He's shepherded forty-six kids to their deaths, and five of them were merchants.

Haymitch knows it will be the same in the other districts, classes turning against each other, blame and gloating in the air. Snow has managed to distract them all from who the real enemy is.

The Games will continue. Panem will continue.

It makes Haymitch feel sick.

There are no standouts in these Games. The Career Districts, where everyone takes tesserae, send young twelve-year-olds - children who weren't allowed to sign up for tesserae in the two months between the reading of the card and the Reaping. Most of the other tributes are from better classes, children of merchants or whoever's the best off in those districts.

Unsurprisingly, Twelve's tributes are both merchants, the eldest daughter of the shoemaker and the youngest son of the greengrocer. Neither makes it out of the bloodbath. Peeta tries to get sponsors for the girl - apparently they're friends - but she can't swim, and the Arena is full of water.

Less than one hour after the Games begin, Delly and Robby are both dead. So are thirteen other tributes, victims of a failure to swim or those who reached that deadly pile of weapons - all that was at the Cornucopia - first.

Haymitch sees the change in Peeta, the way the boy's hands shake as he sits at the console in Mentor Central and stares at the screen where the girl's death aired. It sucks that his first tribute to die was a friend. But at least he'll get that lesson out of the way now: don't get attached. After all, Haymitch learned the same lesson his first year mentoring, when two of his classmates died within minutes of the starting gong.

But it gets worse. There's a messenger waiting for Peeta, now that both of their tributes are out, and with a rising feeling of nausea Haymitch knows exactly what it is that Snow wants. Without Katniss and the shield of being one of the Star-Crossed Lovers, Peeta's available for Snow to whore out. Even with a missing leg, there will be buyers. The boy is too attractive, too kind, too innocent. He'll sell well.

Haymitch can't help him. He dumps the whole mess in Finnick's lap and goes on a drinking spree.

He never comes out of the bottle.

By the time the 76th Games roll around, District Twelve - once again - has only one living Victor.

**oOo**

Gale has never been one to just give up.

It sucks that Katniss is dead. It sucks hard. He's never going to stop missing her - his hunting partner, his best friend, and the girl he loves. Loved. She's still in his heart enough that he can't marry someone else, not yet. Maybe someday, but not now.

Especially since he's not giving up on getting rid of the Capitol.

Besides, now that the electricity on the fence works all the time, and he can't escape to the woods to hunt or trap or take time for himself, he has to direct his energy somewhere.

It starts with whispers, passed as Twelve's miners work deep underground to eke coal out of the earth. Whispers of rebellion. Even concrete plans. Yeah, the dynamite is kept under lock and key, but everyone knows where it is. Surely they could break in, get some, and attack the Peacekeepers. Or the Justice Building. Maybe the train depot which leads to the Capitol. Gale's not picky.

Plans are passed along; workers start to think about rebellion as a foregone conclusion rather than just a possibility. Katniss is remembered.

They don't keep it quiet enough.

Whispers travel, and whispers of rebellion are no exception.

Just a few days after the Victory Tour for the 77th Games - won by a beautiful but deadly eighteen-year-old from One - there's a mine explosion exactly where the whispers of rebellion began.

Somehow Gale isn't surprised to die in exactly the same way as his father.

After all, his father was also a revolutionary.

**oOo**

Cinna's sketchbook is full of designs. Everything from dresses to costumes to Hunger Games uniforms. There are bodies of all shapes and sizes and colorings.

But the undisputed star remains Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss Everdeen dressed for the tribute parade, Katniss Everdeen in flowing gowns, Katniss Everdeen in what he imagines her typical Twelve clothes look like.

Katniss Everdeen dressed as a mockingjay.

He runs his fingers over the drawing, tracing the lines. He never got to make that outfit for her. Or for anyone. The girl on fire has been extinguished, and the spark has died with her. The Games are back to what they once were: a parade of doomed children who reach into their own depths in order to survive. There are no heroes here.

He and Portia are sticking with Twelve. Peeta Mellark needs all the help he can get. Without someone to help, Cinna's pretty sure Peeta will eventually turn into someone like Haymitch - alone, no connections, nothing left but the alcohol and a bunch of dead kids. Cinna may or may not be able to help, but he's going to try. And trying means sticking with Twelve.

The truth is, the way Cinna sees it going, Twelve isn't likely to have another Victor for a very long time. The Games will continue, with Victors from various districts, but unless something extraordinary happens, none will be that spark.

But that doesn't mean he's going to stop drawing. One day, he's sure, there will be a need for that mockingjay dress - or suit. And when there is, he'll be ready.

**oOo**

Madge is barely nineteen when her father dies.

Sure, it appears to be natural causes. A heart attack isn't surprising for a middle-aged man from Twelve, right?

But she knows better. Her father - like her, like her mother, like the aunt she never met - was not an obedient servant of the Capitol. And he didn't do a good enough job quashing Twelve's budding rebellion.

Like so much in Panem, Mayor is a hereditary position, and so at nineteen years old and only six weeks past her last Reaping, Madge finds herself juggling all of the problems which come with leading a district like Twelve - meeting quotas, dealing with starvation and disease, standing as the bridge between the Capitol and her district. It's a tricky balancing act, especially for someone as inexperienced as she is.

Less than a year later, her mother finally dies, passing from the world in a morphling-induced haze. It leaves Madge truly alone.

She never feels it more than when the mine explodes, and she's left with a hint that it wasn't natural and strict instructions never to ask questions or tell anyone else what she knows. She presents the families of the dead miners with medals and their one month's pay and sees Katniss in every face.

Twelve has survived worse. Twelve will survive worse.

And Madge Undersee will be alone for all of it.

Oddly, the person she most relates to is Peeta. He, too, is a loner in Twelve, their sole Victor, living by himself in that house up on the hill. Primrose Everdeen still stops by to help him sometimes, but he keeps her at arm's length. His family has long since stopped trying; he pushed them away years ago.

He tries to do the same to Madge, but she'll only let him avoid her so much. After all, neither of them has anyone else, and who else can understand the precarious position the Capitol puts them in? So she insists on joining him for dinner at least once a week, and while he doesn't encourage it, he allows it.

During the Victory Tour for the 79th Hunger Games - won by a girl from Nine - there's the usual meet-and-greet and speeches and dinner, which Madge hosts. Prairy Jackson is shy, sweet, and, based on some things Peeta's hinted at, the Capitol will eat her alive. _That poor child_, Madge thinks before remembering the girl is only six years younger than her.

They see her off in the morning, and the forced crowds disappear until it's just the two of them, staring into the far distance at the swiftly-departing train, no more than a speck of light on the horizon. The silence is comfortable, like the nights Madge has dinner at his house.

Peeta surprisingly breaks it. "Poor kid," he says. "Sometimes I think the ones who die are the lucky ones."

Madge has had the same thought.

He lets out a harsh laugh, nothing like the sunny giggle he had when they were kids. "Just as well it's going to be years before Twelve even has a chance at winning, isn't it?"

She frowns. "What do you mean?"

"We're rebels. Punishment lasts a long time in the Capitol."

"The Games are rigged?" She can't say she's surprised. Oh, she doesn't think they're entirely rigged. But they can't be entirely unrigged either. Children of Victors are Reaped too often for chance, there's always at least one or two twelve-year-olds from non-Career Districts, and when the tributes won't fight something always happens to make sure they do.

"Not completely. But I know a few Gamemakers. Twelve's not allowed to win for now. Probably until another district angers Snow more. Or when Katniss isn't a symbol anymore." He shrugs as if it means nothing.

"Snow's getting older," Madge points out. She sees it sometimes, in the dispatches he sends the Mayors. Oh, he fakes it well, but his hands shake more than they used to, and he pauses more often to cough up blood. She doesn't think he's dying, but she knows he's aging. Even the Capitol can only hold it off so long.

"What makes you think the next president will be any different?" Peeta shakes his head. "No. That's the lesson, Madge. The Capitol always wins."

She thinks about that. Part of her knows he's right. But the rest of her… "That doesn't mean we stop fighting."

He gives her a half-smile. "I hope that works out for you."

_Yeah_, she thinks when he turns and trudges back toward town, _me too._

**oOo**


	2. Descent

**oOo**

Prim isn't Reaped for the 75th Games.

Or the 76th, or the 77th, or the 78th, or the 79th.

The day before the 80th Games, she goes to speak to Peeta. He's been trying to push her away for years, but she won't leave him alone. He loved - loves - her sister. He'd almost been her brother. And that matters.

"Be honest with me," she says as she prepares a stew for dinner. If she doesn't cook, he probably won't eat. "What are my chances of being Reaped tomorrow?" She has eleven slips in the bowl. More than some people, but far fewer than most of the Seam - Vick Hawthorne, who's three years younger than her, already has twenty-one. She and her mother made it through the 78th Games by spending Katniss's money carefully, but after that tesserae became a necessity. Taking them felt like breaking Katniss's trust, but Katniss was long-dead, and they needed the grain.

Peeta shakes his head. "You won't be Reaped," he says with absolute certainty.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know who it'll be, but it won't be you. Put you in the Games, and everyone will remember Katniss. She'll be a symbol again. The districts might coalesce around you the way they almost did around her. That's the last thing Snow wants." He shakes his head again. "No, much safer to keep you out. Your name isn't even in that bowl, Prim. I guarantee it. Those eleven slips you have? Probably destroyed less than an hour after you wrote them."

Prim's chest loosens, then tightens. "Maybe I should volunteer." She can't just leave some other girl to face the Games, can she? Katniss kept her out, can she do anything else?

Peeta's breath catches. "Don't. Not unless you're okay with dying, with your mother dying."

Fear stabs through her. "Ma?"

"Snow would kill her in a heartbeat. And I'm not sure she'd survive your death anyway. It would… look, just don't. Please, Prim."

Part of her still thinks she should. But it's been a long time since Peeta allowed that much real emotion into his voice. Besides, he's probably right about her mother, and Prim doesn't want to be responsible for her mother's death. "Okay," she says, placing her hand on his. "I won't. I promise."

"Thank you," he says, his voice brimming with emotion.

The next morning, Prim's closest friend is Reaped. She opens her mouth to volunteer. But her eyes lock with Peeta's, and she sees the promise she made in them.

And, no matter how much it pains her, she closes her mouth without saying anything. _Katniss would have volunteered anyway_, part of her whispers.

_I'm not Katniss_, she reminds it.

Two weeks later, Anna is dead and Prim is delivering a baby.

_Life goes on_, she thinks as she helps the child breathe for the first time. _Even here, life goes on_.

**oOo**

As much as she sometimes wishes it wouldn't, life goes on.

Lavinia is beautiful and young and much in demand as an Avox. She spends most of the year serving the government of Panem, except when the Games are in session and the government takes its annual break to enjoy the slaughter. She doesn't get a break, of course. She's the lowest of the low, a voiceless slave, and so she must never stop working.

It's not a good life or even an easy one. But it's what she has. And there's a part of her that wants to live, no matter how terrible life is.

Every year, when she returns to Twelve's rooms on the top floor of the Training Center, she remembers Katniss Everdeen and the kindness she showed her. Lavinia does her best to return that kindness. She can't help Katniss anymore, but Peeta was her district partner and co-Victor, so he is her focus.

He must notice, because when he returns to the Capitol for the 81st Games, he speaks to Lavinia in halting Avox sign. He doesn't know much, but he knows just enough to begin to understand her.

"How did you learn?" she asks, moving her hands far slower and in much wider gestures than she would with another Avox.

"Finnick Odair," he signs with painful slowness. "He keeps-" he hesitates before figuring out the word "-secrets."

Lavinia knows plenty of secrets. Serving the government of Panem as a nameless voiceless slave who's essentially part of the scenery has given her a lot of information. But she's never been able to use it before. She's never even thought of it as an option.

Well. Now she has at least one person she can tell those secrets to, and maybe - just maybe - they'll finally do some good.

**oOo**

Johanna hates watching other Victors destroy themselves. It hits too close to home.

Peeta Mellark's not there yet, but he's on the way. Too much whoring, too much death, and he's changed from the person he once was - the boy who told Katniss Everdeen that he didn't want the Games to change him.

The Games didn't change him. But the aftermath…

He's just a little bit harder, more uncaring, than he was. Seven straight years of dead tributes, seven straight years of being whored out. It's enough to change anyone. And this eighth year - the 82nd Games - doesn't look to be all that different.

While the tributes are off in the Remake Center getting prepped for the parade, the Victors meet up. It's the first time they've all seen each other in almost a year, and it's always a roaring party.

Johanna's not friends with these people - she doesn't have friends - but she understands them, and they understand her, in a way that she can't relate to District Seven anymore. Grabbing a fruity drink which probably has three times as much alcohol as anyone would expect, she makes her way to Peeta's corner. He's sitting nursing a whiskey, looking so much like his mentor despite the differences in their coloring that it makes her breath catch.

She misses Haymitch. And Mags, who had a stroke two years ago and died peacefully in her sleep. Even Wiress, who finally got so loopy that Snow told her never to leave District Three. The older Victors dwindle every year, those who are too sick to come or just plain dead. Instead there are new faces - Zink from Ten, a blacksmith's son who won the Third Quarter Quell; Glaze from One who's almost as popular as Finnick Odair; Prairy from Nine who's been a Victor for barely three years and already shows signs of morphling addiction.

And then there's Peeta. She taps his glass with hers. "To the dead."

"To the dead," he echoes and drinks.

On the other side of the room, Brutus has his head together with Cashmere and Gloss, no doubt already planning the Career pack.

"The odds aren't in our favor," Johanna mutters.

Peeta gives her a wry smile. "They never have been for Twelve."

That's true. He's never had a tribute last more than three days in his seven years of mentoring. She doubts it'll be any different this year, not after what she saw of his kids at the Reaping. Frankly, hers probably won't do much better. Cypress is wily and might make it a week, but he's not a fighter. Astrid is barely thirteen.

She clinks his glass again. "To freedom."

This time his smile isn't false. He isn't completely lost, and for a broken girl with walls around her heart, that's strangely comforting. "To freedom."

**oOo**

Boggs isn't sure that President Coin made the right decision, backing away from the plans for revolution because Katniss Everdeen is dead.

On the other hand, he's not sure she made the wrong decision.

Either way, what's done is done, and all they can do is move forward.

Thirteen goes on as it always has. They live underground. They train for a war that hasn't yet come. They live their lives by the schedule.

People find partners, have sex. Children continue to be born, but fewer every year. More and more people present with fertility problems - Boggs is only one of many who will never father a child. And of the children who are born, too many belong to the same few families.

The flow of migrants slows, becomes a trickle, as the Capitol puts more safeguards in the wilderness between Twelve and Thirteen. The border with Six is strengthened. Migrants still try to come, sure, but only the hardy - the lucky - make it all the way to Thirteen. In a good year, they get four or five.

Most years aren't good ones.

Because the numbers are so few and they need all the population they can get, they accept everyone who comes. Until finally one migrant, supposedly an escapee from the Capitol itself, arrives carrying a Capitol-incubated disease. He's not sick. But he is a carrier.

The disease rushes through Thirteen, destroying their district. Over eighty percent of the population gets sick. Of those, half die and another quarter are left infertile. Only a quarter retain their reproductive capacity. And most of those will always have some scar - whether physical or mental - of the illness.

For an already shrinking population, it's a death blow. The next generation won't be viable, and everyone knows it. They'll never replace their numbers.

They've missed their one chance.

After all this time, the Capitol finally wins.

**oOo**

The Capitol always wins.

In Two, that is not opinion; it is fact.

No matter what happens, in the end, the Capitol will always win.

Lyme had thought, hoped, for one brief moment that Katniss Everdeen would be the one to prove that maxim wrong, that finally the districts would rise up and take back what was rightfully theirs.

That hope is dead.

It's been ten years since the 74th Games, and Katniss Everdeen is just a memory, a cautionary tale. Instead of the girl on fire, she's a symbol of why you shouldn't burn.

Lyme keeps pushing against the system, but a rebellion of one will never go far, and Two's other Victors are reluctant to join her.

"What's the point?" Enobaria asks. Those gold fangs glimmer in the light. "We're what they made us."

"But don't you want to be something more?" If she can get just one...

Enobaria shakes her head. "If it were possible, sure. But it's never going to happen. The Capitol always wins."

Lyme doesn't stop. Can't stop. Until, finally, she pushes a little bit too hard in exactly the wrong way, and Snow comes down on her hard.

Two has enough Victors. No one will miss one middle-aged woman who won over thirty years ago. Not with all the others vying for attention. Not when Enobaria mentored yet another tribute to victory just this year.

And like that, she's another cautionary tale.

Don't go against the Capitol. You'll never win.

**oOo**

Posy Hawthorne is fourteen years old, and she's going to die.

She's not pretty or deadly, so unless the Arena is somehow a coal mine, it's not like she'll have any advantage. And the chances of that are practically nil - caves don't film well, so while there's usually (but not always, she saw the 77th Games) some shelter in the Arenas, there's never been a mine.

She's fooling herself, really. District Twelve kids don't go into the mines for anything other than the occasional field trip. Her experience down there lasted less than three hours and taught her very little. She spent the whole trip panicking because both her father and her brother died in a place like that, and it was dark and scary and the thought of working there was completely terrifying.

Well, win or lose, she'll never have to enter a mine again. Victors don't work, and dead tributes…

Her district partner, a boy who's two years older who she recognizes vaguely from school, babbles at their mentor, Peeta Mellark, without making the slightest dent in the man's concentration. He's ignoring them to read a letter which Posy recognizes as the one Mayor Undersee handed to him just before they boarded the train.

She wonders what it says - anything to keep herself from worrying over where and when and how she's going to die.

He smiles, an expression she hasn't seen him wear since Katniss Everdeen died, before tucking the letter into his jacket pocket. With a jolt, he comes back to himself, finally listening to whatever Cann is babbling about.

"So, you're supposed to give us advice," Posy interrupts them both.

Peeta blinks at her, his eyes going through a contortion of emotions she can't name even though not a single one shows on his face. "Here's some advice. Stay alive."

He seems to be waiting for something, but after a minute of silence where Posy and Cann just stare at him, he sighs and heads over to the bar in the corner.

Great. Only one fourteen-year-old has ever won the Games (and Finnick Odair was so popular that the Capitol itself bought him a golden trident of all things), she's got no idea what she's doing, and now her mentor is useless. Besides, it's not like the Games will ever change. The Capitol loves its dead children too much.

Yeah.

She's definitely going to die.

**oOo**

Coriolanus Snow holds onto power until the very end.

The poison he used on so many others finally works its way through his body, intent on claiming its last victim. There's something terribly ironic about that.

But he knew it was coming, so he's set things in motion for his heir. Demetrius is unfortunately fairly incompetent, but if he comes into an already-established system, he should manage. At least, that's what Coriolanus hopes.

...Perhaps he should name Titania his heir? Her daughter Hippolyta shows promise, anyway. But no. Your oldest child is your heir, and he's never been one to go against tradition.

Anyway, it's too late now. The poison is spreading, drawing him in, making him remember both the best and the worst moments of his life.

Climbing the ranks of power.

Almost being taken down by his own poison.

His wife's death.

The destruction of District Thirteen - oh, they're not officially gone, but they'll never come back. Alma Coin may live on, but her hope for a revolution will not.

The death of Katniss Everdeen.

Killing Katniss Everdeen when the girl was stupid enough to go beyond the fence… that was one of the smartest moves he ever made. Far better than what he'd originally considered, a Quell starring the Victors. It would have been glorious, a show for the ages. Adults, killers all, competing for the crown.

But he'd have lost so many of his moneymakers.

And part of the reason the Games work is because the Capitol isn't attached to the tributes until they win. Then the Capitol is very attached to its Victors. Sending Victors into the Arena? The Capitol might have acted like the Districts, and while he could withstand a disorganized rebellion from Twelve or Eleven or Eight, he would never have been able to survive a rebellion from the Capitol itself.

No. Making the girl a martyr might have destroyed him. Making her instead an object lesson has worked out very well. It's been eleven years since her death, and children are still warned not to go into the woods, or something might eat you.

As he slips toward death, he smiles. Demetrius will continue on his path. In his image.

And isn't that all he could truly hope for?

**oOo**


	3. Turning Point

**oOo**

Demetrius tries to follow in his father's footsteps. But as his father knew but didn't truly understand, he's incompetent.

And thus quickly deposed by others seeking power.

The infighting in the Capitol goes on for months, with everyone with any urge for power jockeying for control. Hippolyta Snow's grandfather kept power too close, too tight - after all, he was president for almost fifty years and made sure no one else rose high enough to meet him, let alone surpass him.

After her uncle is assassinated, her mother is killed as well, and Lyta herself is turned into an Avox. The current president won't allow remnants of the old ruling family to threaten her reign. It doesn't help her keep her position; she's forced out only three months after she takes charge, when the rumors grow enough that an angry mob demands her head.

But those who follow her have the same philosophy.

Lyta learns quickly. How to serve, how to sign, what's expected. She already knew how to pretend she was fine even when she wasn't, but she perfects that skill. And, perhaps most importantly, she learns the true depths to which Panem can sink.

Lyta is threatened, beaten, treated like she's nothing.

Raped.

When the newest president, Panem's fifth in one year, grins a cruel smile at the mute young woman trapped on the bed underneath him, she hates Panem - and her grandfather - with everything she is.

Does anyone deserve this? Does anyone deserve to die, in the Hunger Games or in any of the other myriad ways the Capitol can cause their deaths? Does anyone deserve slavery?

Would Panem have been better if Katniss Everdeen's revolution had succeeded?

Lyta's pretty damn sure it wouldn't have been worse.

**oOo**

After it's all over, 87 becomes known as the Year of Seven Presidents.

Finnick Odair personally takes down at least four of them, plus countless others who never reach the top.

A whisper here, a nudge there, and he reduces the field, removing those who would be the most harmful. It's his first true chance to play politics, and he's good at it. Besides, he knows far more about the Capitol than they realize, and he uses every bit of it to steer the Capitol in his preferred direction. More secrets come out that year than anyone realized existed, and it throws Panem into chaos in a way that hasn't been seen since the death of Katniss Everdeen.

Snow, for all his horribleness, easily kept the government in line. He was ruthless - had he been in the Hunger Games, Finnick has no doubt he would have won.

No one else in the Capitol can compare.

Finnick uses his own ruthlessness, whatever it was that allowed him to kill five children and survive an Arena at the age of fourteen, to get what he wants. Not president; he doesn't want to be in charge of an entire country. But being the one behind the throne… well, if it'll let him and Annie marry and get him out of the sex slave business, that's worth it.

When someone Finnick is willing to live with finally takes the reins of power - Claudius Templesmith, of all people - Finnick demands a meeting and points out that he knows about the 'tragic accident' the man's father suffered, but he won't tell anyone else if Claudius only does what he wants.

"And w-what do, do you w-want?"

Finnick smiles. "Well, you see, I'm ready to settle down. Start a family. All I want is some time with my fiancée." He tilts his head as though he's just thought of something. "Oh. And this whole buying of Victors? I think it's time to end that little custom, don't you?"

"They'll kill me!" Claudius protests.

"Not if you do it slowly." Finnick leans in. His smile is no longer a smile so much as a baring of teeth. "Certainly, it's possible someone might kill you. But if you don't do it, someone definitely will."

Claudius gives in, just as Finnick knew he would. Snow wouldn't have. Most of the people who wanted to take over from Snow wouldn't have. Claudius Templesmith doesn't have the backbone.

Which is exactly why Finnick allowed him to win.

**oOo**

Cressida and her crew are among the first people put on Plutarch Heavensbee's new project, an event called the Olympics - named after some old sports competition Plutarch read about in a book somewhere. She's surprised; she didn't realize there even were books left from before the Cataclysm.

Anyway, it's a lot more fun and a lot less harrowing than anything else she's had to film. Interviews with the Hunger Games tributes' families are a special kind of terrible, and everything with the Victors always makes her feel like they'd kill her as soon as look at her. Other Capitol programming - fashion shows, news reports - is like dealing with a bunch of hummingbirds. She's done it, sure, and she'll keep doing it. But it's good to have a change.

For whatever reason, Plutarch's named the events of this new Olympics thing after the Victors. So there's the Katniss Everdeen Archery Competition, the Johanna Mason Axe-Throwing Contest, and the Finnick Odair Fish Spearing Challenge. But there's also the Peeta Mellark Cake Decorating Contest, the Beetee Latier Robot-Building Challenge, and the Prairy Jackson Game of Hide-and-Seek.

There's something incredibly morbid about the whole thing.

But on the other hand, no one actually dies. No one's even really injured. It's all tests of skill, and the worst thing that happens is maybe a few bruises.

Cressida finds herself enjoying it. She'd never quite been able to stop thinking of the tributes as real people, something she knows is considered a failing in the Capitol. But this? Volunteers having fun and her getting to film it all?

She's having the time of her life.

**oOo**

Romulus Thread retires when he's almost sixty. He's given Panem forty good years of service, and he'd give it more, but he's slowing down enough that he's no longer as capable as he once was, and that could be dangerous. He's not a young man anymore.

Twelve's been an easier posting over the last fifteen years, since Katniss Everdeen was killed. Oh, her death was presented as an accident, but as the Head Peacekeeper of District Twelve, President Snow enlisted his help in making sure it happened. A little bit of paralyzing mist, and the girl couldn't move when they set the mutts on her. Just as well she took the bait and went beyond the fence when she really shouldn't have.

She deserved it. She was getting ready to destroy Panem, and if Romulus is one thing, it's a patriot.

And it worked. Twelve is much better now. Calmer. Since the fence is always on, his Peacekeepers don't have to guard it so zealously. The mine explosion killed most of the ringleaders, so there's no rebellion. The black market's gone. In short, it's a peaceful place, where the biggest problem is the gossip. He'll be ecstatic if he never has to hear another rumor that Twelve's Mayor and Victor are shacking up.

They aren't. Mayor Undersee made sure to assure him that she and Mellark were only friends the first time the rumor went around. Fifteen years after the girl's death, and the man is still in love with Katniss Everdeen.

What an idiot.

When Romulus leaves Twelve, he returns to Two. It doesn't feel like home anymore; he hasn't been back for anything but short visits since he was nineteen and began his service. But it's what he has. No wife, no kids - service is everything. Panem is everything.

He takes a position at the Peacekeeper training school, teaching the next generation how to serve their country.

It's enough. It'll have to be enough.

**oOo**

When Thread finally retires, Twelve breathes a sigh of relief.

Their new Head Peacekeeper is promoted from within the ranks of Twelve's current Peacekeepers, a woman named Purnia Freeman who's been around for a long time. She's much less rigid than Thread - she knows the law, but she also knows when it's best not to enforce it too hard.

_If we have to be stuck with Peacekeepers at all, she's not a bad sort_, Thom thinks. _She's someone we can work with._

And apparently the directives from the Capitol are also getting more permissive. Head Freeman actually comes to Thom - now foreman of the mine - and asks him to meet with her, Peeta Mellark, Greasy Sae, and Mayor Undersee to discuss setting up a new market. Not where the Hob used to be, but it'll serve the same purpose.

When he asks about it, she shrugs. "President Templesmith's a lot more…"

"Easygoing?" Mayor Undersee supplies. She would know.

Head Freeman points at her. "Yes. He's a lot more easygoing than President Snow was."

Mellark nods. "We've all got it easier."

"Not our tributes, boy," Sae puts in.

He gives her a sickly smile. "I try."

Mayor Undersee pats his arm. "I know you do. We all know you do."

_Huh_. Thom doesn't seriously think they're together, but there's clearly some basis for the rumors. Well, it'll do 'em both good. In their thirties both, and neither's ever married. Thom's only a couple years older than them, and his eldest's already fourteen. They've got a lot of catching up to do.

Plus it'd be good if Mellark finally got over Everdeen. Girl might've been the love of his life, but she's been dead sixteen years. Even Twelve barely remembers her.

Head Freeman clears her throat to get their attention, and Thom pushes his mind back to the plans for a new market. It'll be good for Twelve, and that's what matters.

**oOo**

Claudius Templesmith sometimes wishes he'd never become president of Panem.

Oh, he loves the ceremonial aspects of his job. The attention is amazing.

Actually having to make decisions is…

Difficult.

Especially since there are so many people clamoring for his thoughts, his opinion, his decisions. And there's always the constant specter of Finnick Odair and that ruthless smile telling him which way he has to go.

Claudius doesn't want to die, and he's completely certain that, if he did the wrong thing, Finnick Odair would kill him without a single qualm.

When he announced the Hunger Games, he saw the Victors, he saw their kills, but he never saw just how close that could be to the surface. And now they terrify him, every single one of them, from the ruthless Finnick Odair to the morphling-addicted Prairy Jackson to even the dead Katniss Everdeen. Any of them would happily kill him, and he'd be powerless to stop it. How did Coriolanus Snow live with that knowledge?

Plutarch Heavensbee is a reassuring voice of reason in his cabinet, a man who can guide him in a direction which threads the line between competing demands. Claudius finds himself listening to the man more and more.

And it goes well! Panem is doing better than ever, from the Capitol down to the districts.

Sometimes he's glad he's president after all.

**oOo**

People no longer run to District Thirteen.

While President Coin ostensibly recovered from the epidemic back in 83, Leeg isn't certain that she fully recovered. She was a martinet, strict and uncompromising, even before the epidemic.

Now she's obsessive. Paranoid. Incapable of accepting that Thirteen is a dying district and whatever hope they had for revolution is dead, has been dead since Thirteen abandoned their plans after the death of Katniss Everdeen.

Even if people did come to Thirteen, Coin wouldn't let them in. The last two migrants who made it through the Capitol's traps were left to die in the wilderness outside Thirteen, as fears of another epidemic ran rampant through the population. Both eventually starved.

It wasn't a pretty death.

Instead, the schedules are even stricter, and now there's talk about testing for fertility and forcing you to have children with whomever is best-suited genetically, whether that's one person or more. Birth control has already been outlawed; now pregnancy could become mandatory. It might not (probably won't) be enough to save the district, but Coin is determined to try.

This isn't the life Leeg wants.

And the news from Panem is getting better. Sure, there's still death. But the districts are doing better, and Thirteen's spies no longer seem to want to return. Everyone's in better shape than they were ten, twenty, thirty years ago.

Leeg and her sister pack up and slowly sneak their things out of the district every time they're allowed aboveground.

Maybe they won't make it to Six or Twelve. Maybe the traps will kill them both.

But trying to get out has to be better than staying.

**oOo**

Caesar Flickerman is getting older. The Capitol can do wonders with skin, coloring, tattoos… but even they can't fully erase the signs of aging.

And worse yet, attention is moving away from him. From the Hunger Games.

These new Olympics draw the crowds, while the Hunger Games seem to get less and less exciting every year. It's almost perfunctory, watching twenty-three children die and one take the crown. Worse, it's boring.

And everyone's forgetting Caesar.

He hates it.

All he ever wanted was to be noticed, to be seen. To be the star. He failed at being an actor, but interviewing for the Hunger Games, he had it. He had everything. And his crowning glory, that interview with Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen after they won…

Life hasn't been so good since.

Caesar tries to complain to Claudius at one of the presidential parties - they're old friends, after all - but the man brushes him off.

He tries to get a job with the new Olympics, but apparently Effie Trinket - of all people - is popular as the host, and they don't need an aging has-been.

And then, he's removed from the Hunger Games and sent into unwanted retirement in the far outskirts of the Capitol.

Yes, life is definitely getting worse.

**oOo**


	4. Finale

**oOo**

Plutarch Heavensbee spends twenty-six years as the Head Gamemaker, and in that time, he does his absolute best to make the Games more boring. He's sneaky about it under President Snow, but once Snow dies…

First there's that year of confusion, then Claudius Templesmith takes over and Plutarch can make his machinations more obvious. Snow would have removed him long ago, but Claudius never does. Plutarch isn't sure if Claudius doesn't realize what he's doing or if he doesn't have the guts to protest. Or if Finnick Odair's leash is that short.

Probably the last.

He makes the Hunger Games much more boring, much more predictable, so the Capitol finds them less interesting.

Meanwhile, he invents new diversions, new events for the Capitol to enjoy. To bet on.

And it works. Attention on the Hunger Games slowly wavers, then wanes, as fascinated Capitolites clamor for more feats of endurance, tests of strength, and skill-based competitions. Finally the Hunger Games is one spectacle among many instead of the sole event the Capitol lives for.

Once the Hunger Games are sidelined - most of the stylists have moved to something new, Effie Trinket is the toast of Panem, and even Caesar Flickerman tried to get in on the new Olympics - Plutarch knows it's time.

With the Victors, he begins to push Claudius to end the Games.

"They're not necessary," he says at one meeting.

"People love those new Olympics," he says at another.

"People get angry when you kill their children. Best to keep the districts pacified," he says at a third.

Slowly, it works. Claudius hasn't taken that leap yet, but one day soon, he will.

Plutarch still wishes there had been a true revolution, that Katniss Everdeen had been able to live up to the hopes laid upon her. But she was a child, and her shoulders weren't wide enough. Revolution - true revolution - failed.

Instead the Capitol is not destroyed, not changed. They still eat too much and vomit it up, care about the silliest things, and ignore the plight of those without enough in the districts. But at least they no longer cheer for the deaths of children.

It will have to do.

**oOo**

District Four is beautiful.

It always has been, really. At least, to Annie it has.

But the scenery is nothing when compared with the people.

The most wonderful thing she could imagine is playing with her husband and their children in the ocean surrounding their home. Yes, the ocean itself is beautiful, but it's the people in it who truly hold her attention. Finnick, unscarred despite the wounds he's sustained, catches their daughter and lifts her above his head while their son dances around them, giggling all the while.

Their children should be older, in their teens instead of seven and three. They should have more than just two; Annie always wanted a big family. She treasures the family she has even though a part of her will always ache for what she should have gotten.

They weren't able to live the life they deserved. The Games, the Capitol, took so much from them. Finnick spent years as a slave, forced into a veneer of availability so the Capitol could think of him as someone they could own. Annie spent years stuck inside her own head, unable - unwilling - to trust that anything was real.

They're finally starting to heal, to get back what should have been theirs.

She'll never be completely sane. He'll never be completely unscarred (even if those scars never show on his falsely perfect skin). The rest of the Victors will always be immutably changed, whether dead like Katniss Everdeen or permanently wounded like Johanna Mason.

But still. This is better. And if they have their way, by the time their children are old enough to be Reaped, the Hunger Games will no longer exist.

**oOo**

Sometimes it feels like Twelve has been asleep for hundreds of years, and that it just woke up. What used to be a grim coal-covered town is now-

Well, it's still coal-covered.

But it's happy, vibrant. The people talk as they run their errands. They chat with Sae when they buy her stew and linger to eat.

What's in the stew is better, too. There were lean years, hard ones, after Katniss Everdeen and Gale Hawthorne died and the woods were fully blocked off. Head Peacekeeper Thread didn't make it any easier. But now things are different. The woods are still off-limits, but more supplies come into Twelve, and there have even been raises at the mines. More people can afford to buy food, and Sae can afford better meat to put in it. There's even a new market where she has a stall.

Of course, she still serves squirrel stew sometimes. The little buggers are on the trees inside the fence as well as out, and Vick Hawthorne's a good trapper. She's got a wealth of customers now, people who want what she cooks. Everyone from the miners to the merchants to the Mayor comes by her booth.

Even Peeta Mellark comes sometimes, no matter that he can afford far better food than her measly squirrel stew - even if he always treats it as though it's the best meal he's ever had.

From what Sae can see, he's happier than he used to be, at least most of the year. Right before the Games, he always goes into a funk, and he doesn't come out of it until a month or so after he returns from the Capitol. He still hasn't brought home a Victor, but looking at him, Sae's not sure he truly wants to.

She's just glad that none of her grandchildren were ever Reaped. Her heart still aches for her oldest daughter, dead in the 47th Hunger Games. Pica was only twelve. She never had a chance.

But maybe future children will.

**oOo**

A month after the 98th Hunger Games, Darius is finally free.

It's President Templesmith's newest initiative - a new Avox hasn't been made in almost five years, and the current ones are being released to live their lives.

Many of them stay anyway, because where else can they go? Lavinia tells him she's going to keep spying for Finnick Odair and the other Victors - best to keep Panem moving in this better direction. But now she can do it as a servant, not a slave.

The thought of staying, if he has any other choice, makes him sick. Even if there isn't a place for them. The Capitol will recoil at people so mauled, and most of them have no connection to the districts. Besides, a lack of tongues makes it difficult to communicate.

But enough of them are determined to leave that they're going to make their own place. Even if it means they go to Twelve - Darius's years there were among the happiest of his life. Life was simple back then. Sure, Twelve was always a mess, but eating squirrel stew, tugging Katniss Everdeen's braid, working under a Head Peacekeeper who was content to live and let live… it was a good life. Twelve is worth a try.

And it works; Purnia allows them to build their own small settlement, and Madge Undersee and Peeta Mellark lead the district to accepting this new group of strange soundless people who look so different from the Twelve natives. They don't all give their full histories; Lyta, for one, never uses her full name. For all that Twelve is welcoming, Snow's granddaughter might be one step too far, and no one - least of all Lyta herself - would blame them for it.

But as strange as they are, the Avoxes are welcomed and become a part of this new Panem.

And really, what more can a group of ex-slaves ask for?

**oOo**

At the age of seventy-nine, Beetee Latier goes to sleep and never wakes up. Some part of him knows it's coming, knows it's the end. He welcomes it in a way he couldn't when he was sixteen and terrified to die. He killed then, to survive, used what the Capitol gave him to build a bomb to take out all the Careers at once. Now there's nothing to fight; he'll quietly let himself pass.

His one regret is that he didn't live to see the end of the Games. It hasn't happened yet, but he's certain it's coming. They'll convince Templesmith one day, and the Games will finally be over.

Twenty-five years later than it could have. Than it should have.

Katniss Everdeen still shines in his mind, a brighter spark than any of the false ones made in District Three. She was the Mockingjay. She should have lit the world on fire.

She was cut down too early, too falsely.

There is blood on his hands, but only that which he could not avoid. And he has kept five tributes alive. It's not as many as some mentors, but it's more than most. Those children - adults now - are his legacy.

And what more can a dying man ask for?

**oOo**

Effie hasn't spoken to Peeta Mellark in years, so she's surprised when he finds her in the audience at the Victory Ceremony for the 100th Hunger Games. She moved on years ago and is no longer Twelve's escort, hasn't been since she began hosting the Olympics. She was reluctant to leave District Twelve, but Peeta urged her to go, to take advantage of the opportunity presented to her. And she did so.

Cinna and Portia left with her; they design for her and the Olympics now. The uniforms are theirs, as are many of the team costumes. They show off their skill with her, dressing her as everything from a starlet to a mockingjay.

It means Peeta is alone other than the Avoxes and the tributes - and, she supposes, the other Victors. But unlike her fears, it doesn't seem to have harmed him.

Peeta looks different, older. It's a jolt to see him like this, when her image of him will always be a boy on the edge of manhood, a sixteen-year-old sharing a couch with Katniss Everdeen. No matter that he hasn't been that age in years. No matter that when she moved on he was over thirty.

They sit together and watch the crowning of the Victor, an eighteen-year-old from Four, one of Mags's great-granddaughters, and listen to President Templesmith's announcement that Margaux Flanagan will be the final Victor - that the Hunger Games are over.

Peeta has a satisfied - but not surprised - smile on his face.

Effie isn't sure what to think. Yes, she loved the Hunger Games when she was younger. Yes, she was an escort for over twenty-five years. But Katniss's death broke something in her and made her wonder for the first time if this was what the districts felt like when one of their own was Reaped.

She never said anything aloud. She still won't.

But after everything, she can't be upset that there will never again be another Hunger Games.

**oOo**

Peeta Mellark isn't that old, in the grand scheme of things. He's only forty-three.

But he's lived long enough to see the end of the Hunger Games.

It took thirteen years, but they finally convinced President Templesmith that the Games needed to end and Plutarch's distractions would be a better form of entertainment. The Capitol doesn't even seem to miss it, concentrated on Plutarch's Olympics as they are.

He never had a Victor. Twenty-six years of mentoring, and all of his tributes died. _One more year than you, old man,_ he thinks as he stands at Haymitch's grave. He can see the tribute cemetery nearby, those fifty-two young lives he tried and failed to save, from Delly Cartwright all the way down to Maisy Dobbs.

Panem has paid a hard price.

But finally, finally they're free. All the Victors, all those children - they're free. They will never again be called upon to sacrifice their lives, their bodies, or their minds. No more children will die.

He still remembers Katniss, that bright shining spark of a girl who he loved. Now that he's older, he knows he loved the idea of her long before he knew the real her. That doesn't make his love less real, but after she died, he was able to let her go as a dream he never truly had.

He's always reminded of her when he sees Arrow Hawthorne, named in a roundabout way in honor of her aunt. Prim and Rory's daughter is fifteen now, with black Seam hair and blue merchant eyes. She isn't a clone of her aunt, doesn't look exactly like her, but when she stands in just the right way, the resemblance is striking.

Peeta wonders, if the Games had continued, would she have been Reaped?

He's glad he'll never have to find out.

Instead, he can go on and live his life. No more tributes, no more whoring. Just him and District Twelve. His home.

He touches the three middle fingers of his left hand to his mouth and holds them out to Katniss's grave. She didn't make it to the end of the Games. But she was a part of their end. And she'll always be his first love.

This will be his last visit to the cemetery. He's said goodbye. There's nothing left for him here.

Mayor Madge Undersee - older, wiser, and even better than her father at sneaking around under a president's nose - takes his hand as he comes out of the cemetery. "You're free."

He'll never be truly free, and he knows she knows that. But now he has a chance to move on. He squeezes her hand. "That I am." It's time to take a leap of faith. "Come over for dinner?" It's the first time in all those years that he's actually invited her. Every week, she's just shown up.

Her smile is blinding. "I'd love to."

She's not Katniss. She never will be.

But he's not sixteen anymore either. It won't be what he wanted back then. But it could be something wonderful.

Hand-in-hand, they walk forward into the new Panem.

**oOo**


End file.
